October 2018
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Today in Trump Administration viciousness…
…a proposal to basically strip transgender people of Title IX legal protections from discrimination. This is evangelical Christianity as public policy. Whether the courts will go along with such a proposal remains to be seen: many courts have already held that Title IX applies to discrimination based on gender identity.
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Jo Jo Gunne, ‘Run, Run, Run,’ 1972
This Los Angeles band had a top forty hit with this song from their debut album in 1972; I'd never heard it, however, until recently:
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Saudi Arabia should hire a more experienced Mafia lawyer…
…before putting out transparent bullshit press releases like this. Even John Gotti would have been embarrassed!
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Open letter on the case of Lara Alqasem, denied a visa to study in Israel (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 12–UPDATED Philosopher David Enoch (Hebrew U) asked me to share this open letter (written by him, Tamar Hess, and Amos Goldberg), which I am glad to do: Download Letter to International Colleagues Lara AlQassem3 Note that the letter includes concrete suggestions that concerned citizens elsewhere can take to put pressure…
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Open-access journal ‘Ergo’ seeks managing editors
The out-going editors, Franz Huber and Jonathan Weisberg, asked me to share the following, which I'm happy to do in support of open-acess publishing: We are looking for qualified candidates to become managing editors of Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, effective July 1, 2019. Ben Bradley (Syracuse) and Alastair Wilson (Birmingham) have generously…
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Professions of the non-academic readers of the blog
MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 16–MORE READER RESPONSES WELCOME! Thanks to more than 600 non-academic readers who responded to the earlier poll; here are the results on-academic readers, what is your field or profession? Selection Votes Medicine or medical profession 4% 23 Journalism 2% 14 Law or legal profession 20% 122 Librarian 3%…
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A reality check on the Oseroff scandal and the APA Blog (UPDATED)
Given that the Twitter Red Guard continue to dissemble and moan about Professor Stock's and my expose of the APA blog scandal, perhaps a reality check is in order. Nathan Oseroff, a man in his late 20s, who has a prominent on-line position with the American Philosophical Association (that he continuously advertises), took it upon…
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Average salaries and indebtedness
Interesting stats, but bear in mind three things: first, this includes only students who refinanced their law school loans; second, schools continue to be a bit slippery about how they report average starting salaries; and third, average starting salaries are sensitive to region of the country (any school that primarily places in NYC "big law"…
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Irwin to spend one quarter at Stanford for at least the next three years
Terence Irwin (ancient philosophy, ethics), emeritus at both Oxford and Cornell Universities, will be teaching two courses per quarter at Stanford for at least the next three years, starting with the Winter Quarter of 2018-19. Stanford already has one of the top programs for ancient philosophy in the U.S..
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A (mostly) substantive response by three philosophers to arguments put forward by philosopher Kathleen Stock and other gender critical feminists
Here. I do not ultimately find it persuasive (see this comment by philosopher Sophie Allen [Keele] which identifies a key weakness of the response), but it is mostly serious and substantive (unlike most of the responses to Professor Stock from Nathan Oseroff & the Twitter Red Guard, I. Pohl, Talia Mae Bettcher, L. Mollica, Asia…
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Disciplines are the foundation of a university: against the interdisciplinary fad
Jonathan Kramnick, a philosophically-informed English professor at Yale, has a long and generally plausible takedown of the "interdisciplinarity" blather that has now overrun the universities; it is unfortunately behind a paywall, but here's an excerpt: A discipline is an academic unit. It is neither a naturally occurring category nor an arbitrary relic of the history…
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Philosopher who participated in the on-line ‘harassment’ of Rebecca Tuvel has the audacity to lecture others about on-line ‘harassment’ in philosophy
Adriel Trott (Wabash) apparently has no shame. Note that this hypocrite is also involved with the APA Blog! (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Prof. Trott is giving this audacious lecture at a meeting of the SPEP Advocacy Committee.) I put "harassment" in quotes for the obvious reason: Trott conflates actual harassment, such as death threats, with on-line "trolling"…
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UK academics (and others) protest harassment of those taking critical approach to transgender issues in the proposed new UK law
Good to see many philosophers are signatories. From the letter: We are also concerned about the suppression of proper academic analysis and discussion of the social phenomenon of transgenderism, and its multiple causes and effects. Members of our group have experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press, harassment, foiled plots to bring about…
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Blast from the past: Thomas Nagel jumps the shark
Way back in 2009.
If knowledge is sociologically conditioned, then what, exactly, happens to the truth-status of the sociology of knowledge itself? This is…